Reporter's Diary

Press, 3 July 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Coming true HUGE increases in oil prices, writes one reader, and horrid predictions of what this will mean to the private motorist, have reworded Karl Marx’s famous phrase to make it: “Dependant nations of, the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your loans:” Substitute fuel? A READER reports seeing this sign above a shelf full of sardines at her local grocer’s shop: “Only 30c a tin. The oil alone is worth more!” Staff incentive INCREASED oil bills, in- ■ dustrial strife, withdrawn aircraft, trade barriers — these and other impediments stand in the way of making an honest dollar as a meat exporter. But even if times are hard, the multi-national meat trader. Thomas Borthwick and Sons (A’asia), Ltd, still

likes to keep its staff happy when it can. These days, it is sending staff on overseas trips — to the firm’s plant on the Chatham Islands. Guesstimate AFTER studying the number of kilowatts of electricity used by Christchurch householders on Sunday, the chief engineer of the M.E.D. (Mr M. J. Johnstone) has made an “educated guess" as to the number of people who stayed up late to watch Telethon. “It was such a cold, wet, miserable day on Sunday that people would have been inside using heaters anyway,” he said yesterday. “But in the wee small hours of Sunday it does seem that at 1 a.m. about 10,000 households would have been watching television. This dropped to about 5000 at 3 a.m. and about 2500 by 5 a.m. By 10 a.m. I would say. that the figure would have returned to about 12,000.”-

But the most fascinating thing, Mr Johnstone said, was that at 8 p.m., when Telethon ended, there was a sudden dramatic increase in electricity consumption in Christchurch which did not drop away again until an hour and a half later. “It looks very much as though a lot of families made a cup of tea or waited to cook their evening meal until after Telethon,” he said. The plane truth APROPOS last Friday’s item about ailing plane trees, a St Albans reader has written in to clarify what exactly is wrong with the plane trees. Gnomonia platina, he says, is not the name of the disease itself, but of the fungus causing the disease. Tlie trees in London, mentioned in the item, are affected by a disease called plane tree anthracnose, he says. “The disease which has caused the removal of trees in Fitzgerald Avenue is, in fact, the same disease caused by Gnomonia platina,” he says. “Reports from overseas state that the disease usually does not kill trees, except for the occasional nursery tree.

However, several trees in Christchurch have been killed by the disease.” Cause to celebrate THE DINING room at the Vacation Hotel will be the scene of a small celebratory feast on Friday evening. It will mark Mr Richard Worseley’s 1000th dinner at the hotel. Mr Worseley, a Christchurch accountant, who works for Barr, Burgess and Stewart, has dined at the Vacation Hotel on an average of two or three times a week since it opened. “It is convenient, because it’s next door to the office, and I’ve built up a good relationship with the' staff and management,” he said yesterday. The management has organised a special menu for Mr Worseley and his guests on Friday to celebrate the occasion. As well as having so many dinners at the hotel, Mr Worseley eats his lunch on most weekdays at the coffee shop on the ground floor of the hotel. Past a yolk A CURIOUS tradition is attached to the presidency of the Junior Common

Room at St Peter’s College, Oxford. At the end of his term of office, the president and his successors have to push an egg round the quadrangle with their noses — fortified with only a pint of beer at each corner — while fellow undergraduates throw a hail of objects at them. Martin Ivens, the retiring president, underwent this indignity recently and came to the conclusion that it was time the missile-throwing was stopped. The missiles, he said, were often painful and could even be dangerous. But the St Peter’s undergraduates were unsympathetic. The proposal was defeated when put to the vote. A step backwards A BADGE sporting a far from commendable sentiment, which is sure to antagonise the more liber; ated among us, has recently made an appearance in Christchurch. It says: “Slavery for women: Men’s lib.” 'Jelicify'Puce,